AT&T Freezing Bold Devices Until BlackBerry Dakota?

According to the latest rumors coming courtesy of Fudzilla it looks like AT&T might not be going for the BlackBerry Bold 9780. We already saw AT&T branded 9780’s but they have already yanked both the Bold 9000 and Bold 9700 off shelves and are moving the last of their inventory with no plans to order more. According to Fudzilla’s source this is because AT&T seems to think that the rumored BlackBerry Dakota will supplement the Bold line very soon. You can check out the leaked specs on the touchscreen/QWERTY Dakota in this article.

The source told them that AT&T plans on having the BlackBerry Dakota on shelves “as soon as early or mid-spring, but significant quantity is likely not expected at the store and authorized reseller level till very early summer.” Until then AT&T is planning on focusing on their exclusive Torch line along with the Curve 3G and Pearl 3G.

I think it is kind of crazy for AT&T to not have a flagship Bold device in stock but who knows they have done crazier things before…

If so, I hope they at least get a Playbook in their stores sometime before that. Usually you hear of possible tension between Verizon & RIM while AT&T is the carrier with all the BBs, so I’d be shocked if they only had 3 BBs for the next 8 or 9 months.

I am even surprised to hear myself say it, but I agree with AT&T. If I didn’t have the 9650 I’d get the 9780, but if you do have an 9xxx device than just wait for what will be released soon. My brother who uses a BES 8900, didn’t find enough reason to upgrade to the 9780, not different enough, but the Dakota IS!

I already called this lol. I went shopping for a 9700 right for my Dad after Christmas and it was already removed from the website (the 9000 as well) and a week ago, I went into the local AT&T store and they had the 9800, Curve 3G and Pearl 3G on the rear shelf.

I did notice the mysterious absence of the Bold devices on AT&T website back on Friday. I even sent you guys an email expressing exactly the same theory about Dakota’s imminent release. I’m just slightly disappointed that apparently someone has beaten me to it.
Anyway, I’m very happy that it seems I got this one right.
Looks like the wait will be over soon!

This makes perfect sense. No one in their right mind should now buy a 9000 or 9700 under contract. Anyone buying a new blackberry should only consider buying an OS 6 based device. I only wish RIM would get a clue and planning devices 8 months later when they should be out. The cpu and ram, and mobile hotspot spec’s on the Torch 2, should have been what RIM used in the first Torch. The playbook should have been out before Christmas, instead it will drummed out by a equal or higher spec’d Ipad 2. I love ya, Blackberry, but you are killing us devotees.

Neither ATT nor VZW seem to give a crap about BlackBerry any more. Who can blame them when customers are gobbling up iPhones and Droids hand over fist. Probably 10 for every 1 or 2 BlackBerry they sell.

Plus ATT saw how badly VZW bungled with the Tour. Why make the same mistake?

Your comment on iphones and droids selling 10 for every 1 or 2 BB’s is only true of the corporate stores. Corporate salesman are merely clerks that sell the iphone to everyone who walks in an simply mumbles the word iphone. The people in indirect actually try to sell the customer the best phone for their needs, which isnt always the iphone. We generally sell about 50% to 60% smartphones with about 20% being iphones.

Why do people bother reporting what Fudzilla says? Fudzilla is the site that reported the PlayBook was using a Marvell chip the day after Texas Instruments released a statement confirming that the PlayBook had their OMAP chip inside.

A correction? How do you put out the story in the first place? Any site with “sources” should have noticed that the first rumours of the TI OMAP chip surfaced six months ago.

It shows that they are just making this stuff up and reposting their claims leads to nonsense stories such as “AT&T abandoning the BOLD line”. There’s enough poorly constructed attacks on RIM, we don’t need more.

It was an attack on RIM? I don’t think most would interpret it as that.

Corrections to articles are made all the time, I’m sure you know that.

If a site waited for official confirmation from the company itself all the time, what would be the use of sites like Engadget, Gizmodo, etc? They’re always based on speculation, a well placed source here, a rumour there. Sometimes sources are wrong. It happens.

You’re questioning why they posted the article in the first place because there were “rumours” of the TI chip months ago. You don’t see the irony here?

Like Ronen said, it was also about wondering why AT&T doesn’t have any Bolds.

Fudzilla claims to have inside sources. They write articles based on these “sources”. The PlayBook was confirmed by RIM to have a dual-core chip.

There are only two dual-core chips that are in production that match the specifications. One is the Tegra 2 the other is the TI OMAP chip. In October of last year, an analyst released a note that said they believed the PlayBook used the TI chip. That was a rumour picked up by nearly no one.

Fast-forward to CES, a screenshot listed the OMAP. Then a couple days later, TI issued a press release across the major media outlets that stated RIM was using their chip.

The next day Fudzilla ran a story saying that their “sources” told them that it was a Marvell chip. So it’s obvious Fudzilla is printing nonsense. Much like that “Mobility Insider” blog that claimed RIM was going to sell an 8GB version even though Mr. Balsillie appeared at GiTEX with a powerpoint slide that said “16GB,32GB and 64GB”. Yet blogs ran with that story as well.

Is it too much to ask people to spend five seconds researching claims instead of just printing nonsense to drive page views?